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THE BIG IDEA

Every day, MAVERICK employees connect with our customers on different projects across a broad spectrum of categories. We work with executives out in the field to define strategies to achieve their vision. We help plant and operations managers implement change and encourage engineers to integrate and sustain solutions on the plant floor. Now we're sharing our experiences with you through this blog. It's written by engineers, for engineers, and we hope it will help you take your operation to the next level.

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Archive of Enterprise Integration - MAVERICK Rethinking Automation

In my last discussion on OEE I mentioned that when I’m asked the question “where should I get started with improvements on the shop floor?” I usually answer that OEE is the best place to start.
OEE is a tool that helps manufacturing companies improve their bottom line by reducing costs, increasing quality, and increasing productivity. OEE and Continuous Improvement are like two peas in a pod. OEE is a tool that supports the Continuous Improvement initiative!
The Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) metric is a function of the complete manufacturing system, process line, or individual piece of equipment.
The components of OEE are:

I recently sat down with an automation manager responsible for a subsection of a large manufacturing business. His company is embarking on an effort to standardize the use of process control narratives for all automation projects. To my surprise, the concept of process narratives was new to him. He didn't understand their purpose. But he was intrigued and asked many good questions I was happy to answer.

What is a process narrative?

Simply put, a process control narrative is a written description of a manufacturing process that d...

When I’m asked the question, “Where should I get started with improvements on the shop floor?” there is not necessarily an easy answer. There are lots of places to start and it can be very complicated.
All the vendors have their own solutions and will typically tell you to start with their products – all of their products. (That’s obviously not a lot of help and can actually be a total disaster.)
And, everybody else will have some kind of answer as well telling you that you need to start here or there in places that usually turn out to be their pet...

There are many reasons to integrate your automation information system. Fortunately, you don’t always have to rely on an automation hardware and software vendor.
Integration among applications makes data immediately available to all relevant on-site and off-site parties, including, but not limited to, management, engineering, and operations and maintenance staff.
Once applications are integrated, a single point of data storage can be selected, often a historian. The historian can then become the focal point for both local and remote access...

Everybody makes a wrong turn now and then on a project. Most of the time you can correct the wrong turn and get the project back on track pretty easily. Sometimes it’s a lot harder to get the project back on track and sometimes the project can’t be recovered at all.
Of course, the best approach is not to make a wrong turn at all, but that’s a lot easier said than done. So, I thought I would give you a few ideas that might help you avoid a wrong turn or at least make the wrong turn a lot smaller and easier to correct.
Align the project with the business on day one. ...